


It's The Thought That Counts

by bumblefuck



Series: Gifting [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-05
Updated: 2010-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-12 10:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumblefuck/pseuds/bumblefuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has a secret admirer. Or someone's trying to kill him. These days it's hard to tell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's The Thought That Counts

The first thing is coffee and donuts. Which isn't weird by itself, but when it arrives unannounced and nobody is sure how it got there, that raises some suspicions.

"Are you _sure_ you didn't buy them?" Sam asks for the millionth time, and Dean shoves his shoulder.

"Yeah, that's right, I went and got you donuts and I've been pretending I didn't this whole time. You got me."

There's silence as they stare at the box. Sam slaps Dean's hand away when he reaches for it.

"Dude!"

"They could be cursed or something."

Dean raises a sceptical eyebrow. "Yeah, they're cursed donuts. Right. C'mon, Cas probably left them or something."

"Still, we shouldn't-" Dean already has half a donut stuffed in his mouth, though, so Sam just sighs.

"If your insides end bubbling out of your mouth, I am _not_ helping you."

-

The next thing is candy.

Lots and lots of candy.

It's piled on the passenger seat of the Impala when they get up the next morning, Dean having suffered no ill effects from the suspect donuts during the night. He's also acting very smug about it, which makes Sam wish the donuts _had_ been cursed, if only so Dean would shut up.

"They really were delicious, I gotta tell you. You really missed out, Sammy, and... Huh."

Sam sends a brief prayer of thanks for the merciful silence, then gets a good look at what his brother is currently staring at.

"What... the fuck?" he manages. "Did you...?"

Dean shakes his head. "No." Confusion wars with 'holy _shit_ that's a lot of candy.' "Should we...?"

Sam actually grabs Dean's wrist this time. "No. No way. Mystery coffee and donuts were bad enough but at least that was in our room. This is out in the car, where anyone could have put it there."

"But. Sammy. It's _candy._ Someone left us candy!"

 _"No."_

Dean grumbles but acquiesces. The candy ends up on the ground in the parking lot. The plastic wrappers rustle in the Impala's wake.

-

Sam notices the third thing a second too late.

He thinks he can be forgiven for this, given he had just woken up at the time and he's never at his best in the morning. Not before his first (not possibly cursed) cup of coffee, at any rate.

Judging by the girly scream he _absolutely does not make_ and Dean's expression of glee when he finds Sam's only slipped on a speeding ticket left at the bottom of their shower, he's fairly sure he's never going to live it down.

The fact that the speeding ticket has his name on it he just puts down to coincidence and bad motel cleaning staff. Hell, it's from 1973. He wasn't even alive then. And it's not like this is the weirdest thing to ever happen in the oh-so-long Winchester History of Weird.

Still.

-

A noisy whirring sound jerks Sam out of slumber. He spends a second flailing in the sheets he's somehow managed to mummify himself in during the night, and then the next full minute staring at the tiny windup frog toy that's sitting next to his duffel, already wound and making jerky little hops on the motel carpet.

Sam throws a pillow at it and goes back to sleep.

-

Sam's bag makes a mysterious clacking noise.

He gives it an experimental shake. It clacks again, the sound of lots of tiny _somethings_ inside sliding and shifting against each other.

When he tugs the zipper open it's full of keyboard keys. All the letter 'G', except for some that read 'insert' and one that has a smiley face on it. All his stuff is still there, his guns and books and salt and clothes, but over and in and under them are all these keys, clearly from many, many different computers, judging from the colours and sizes. They're even in his laptop bag when he checks, though thankfully all of his laptop's actual keys are present and accounted for.

"What the fuck..." he breathes.

He seems to be saying that a lot lately.

Behind him Dean exits the bathroom in a cloud of steam. "Whatcha lookin' at?" Sam turns to him with a handful of mystery keys. His first instinct is that this is the start of another prank war, but he doubts even Dean would... 'appropriate' hundreds of G's just for a practical joke. Not when he could just fill Sam's laptop with porn or something equally childish.

"They just... appeared," Sam says helplessly. "There're hundreds of them."

Dean comes over for a closer look. He smells like Sam's shampoo and Sam makes a mental note to tease him about that later. "Are those computer keys?" Dean asks incredulously. "What the hell?"

Sam can only shrug. He finds keys in his clothes and at the bottom of his duffel for days after, no matter how well he thinks he cleans it.

-

Sam slides onto the ugly diner bench and immediately stands again with a yelp, scowling as he pulls yet another 'G' from his back pocket. "I swear to God, man, this is getting annoying."

Dean shrugs. "I dunno, I reckon it's pretty hilarious myself." He's not quite hiding a smirk behind the menu and Sam wants to punch him.

"Whatever," he says, and after they order they eat their meal in silence.

"It's just – it's _weird,_ " Sam can't help saying once he puts his fork down. "I just can't stop thinking this is going to turn bad, like the rabbit's foot. I mean, in the last two days I've woken up to a full pancake breakfast that neither of us bought or put there, woken up in a much bigger bed than I went to sleep in, and on the way here I was serenaded by a busker in the street!"

Dean snorts. "Yeah, that one was pretty funny – I mean, weird. Definitely weird." He smiles at Sam's bitchface. "Hey, come on, maybe this is a good thing. I mean, they haven't been _bad_ things, right? Nobody's gotten hurt, or killed. Except you, when you slipped in the tub." And Dean's laughing properly now, not even trying to conceal it, and Sam has had enough. He stands.

"I'll be in the car." He ignores Dean's look of hurt and pulls out his wallet to pay, huffing in disgust when he finds it's full of Tarot cards, all depicting The Lovers. "Okay, that is it!" Turning on his heel, he stomps out of the diner.

In the parking lot he glares at the sky. "I know you're out there," he says angrily. "I know something weird is happening, and I'm not gonna stop until I find out what!" He feels a little stupid, threatening the air, but it makes him feel better. He's on edge, a little freaked, and he figures some random sky-threatening is fully justified in his situation.

He almost jumps out of his skin when Gabriel appears behind him.

"Didn't you like my gifts?" the archangel drawls, one eyebrow raised. It takes Sam a moment to process, his heart still going a mile a minute.

"That – that was _you?"_ he gasps. "You've been messing with me?" He advances on Gabriel menacingly, his height giving him at least the illusion of an advantage. "That's your idea of a gift?"

The archangel raises his hands. He almost looks hurt. "Hey, I was just trying to be nice," he says. Sam doesn't buy it for a second.

"Nice? You – that was meant to be _nice?_ Why the hell would you want to be nice to me? Last I remember we had you trapped in a ring of holy fire."

Gabriel shuffles his feet and Sam has the crazy thought he might be embarrassed. "Yeah, well, let's just say I had a change of heart," he says.

Sam coughs, sceptical. A change of heart? From the Trickster? It hardly seems likely. But then... Candy. Pancakes. The bed. Even the singing. "So... you really were trying to be nice?"

Gabriel nods.

"And the coffee... that was you, too? Even that damn speeding ticket?"

Gabriel nods again. "Yeah, sorry about that one. That kinda backfired." Sam raises an eyebrow. "I can't be perfect all the time."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Right. Well, look, thanks for – for trying, I guess, but I'd really, really like it if you'd just... stop." He steps away from Gabriel towards where the Impala is parked, heavy and black in a corner of the lot.

"Wait." Gabriel's voice is softer, almost hesitant, with little trace of his customary sarcastic drawl. "I have another gift for you, Sam."

Sam's eyebrows rise. "You do?"

The archangel nods. He takes a breath. "Yes."

Sam waits, but nothing more is forthcoming. "Uh. What is it? It's not more singing, is it? Because I'm not sure I can take that."

Gabriel shakes his head. "Hardly. I wouldn't waste great singing on someone so clearly unappreciative." Sam gets the feeling he's stalling. "I'm saying yes."

A shudder of alarm shoots through Sam at the phrase. There hasn't been an awful lot of good associated with the word 'yes' lately. "Yes to what?"

Gabriel sighs. "To joining you, dummy." He says it as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Sam is still suspicious. He eyes the demigod warily.

"Why?"

Gabriel takes a breath and Sam thinks he's going to come out with another quip, something about how they'd screwed up the world so badly Gabriel just _had_ to step in, otherwise how would anything ever get fixed? But the archangel just steps in close, grabs Sam by the collar and crashes their mouths together.

It's weird and messy and Sam's caught entirely off guard so his mouth is kind of half open when Gabriel kisses him, but it's weirdly _good_ and he doesn't mind the mess so much when he slides his tongue against the angel's and Gabriel bites his lip when they part.

"Oh," Sam says. His fingers come up to touch his lower lip and he can just tell he's staring at Gabriel with the most shocked expression on his face but Gabriel looks about the same so he figures it's not too bad. "So... you'll be sticking around, then?" he says, and Gabriel's expression turns from wary to hopeful.

"I guess," Gabriel says, and there's the drawl again. "I mean, _someone_ has to make sure you boys don't screw up even more than you already have."

Sam nods. "Okay," he says. "Okay."

He's not sure what exactly happened, or is happening, but Gabriel smiles at him and for the first time in a long time he feels hope.


End file.
